A Day at the Life Class
Once every two weeks I go to life class. The models change each time and we make sure the hall is well heated.
To warm up we start off sketching two 10 minutes poses. These are generally of the model standing.
Here is Graham on a 10 minutes pose, holding a pole.
Following these we have one or two longer poses, of 20 or 25 minutes, sitting. We try to use different light effects to show the forms better.
Something that also helps a good “setting” are different items of furniture or fabrics in contrasting colours, patterns and textures. Not only does it enhance the human figure in the nude, but also adds visual interest and provides an excellent opportunity to practice folds, colours in shadows, etc.
Finally, a long pose which can go from 40 or 45 mintues to one hour, generally with the model laying down. This gives us time for more detailed observation. In one average session, we produce 6 to 8 sketches.
We also take short breaks for a cup of coffee or tea and biscuits, to relax for a little while, and to look at each others works. It is unbelievable how hard we work during the sessions. It demands so much concentration!
An experienced, professional model, is invaluable because they occassionally suggest new, amusing poses. Like this one, of Graham as a happy drunk!
These sketches were done on cartridge paper with a 2B graphite pencil, versatile enough for most detail and shading.
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June 5th, 20065:55 pm at
I hadn’t realised that a modelling session was so demanding. Different times to do a sketch - do you have to plan ahead on how detailed the sketch will be if the time is limited? Loved the one of the ‘happy drunk’ nice refreshing change from the normal laying on a drape. Congrats.
June 6th, 200611:45 pm at
Thank you Malburian.
You do not really need to plan ahead - I just observe the model for a few seconds or minutes before I start drawing. Then, quickly decide the basics of the composition, e. g., landscape or portrait, and start sketching the main structure and proportions. If the pose is longer, then I add more detail.
The “Happy Drunk”: Yes, we are very lucky because Graham, our model, is very creative!
June 10th, 20068:05 am at
I happened to “drop” into your blog while researching arte history and related stuff. I instantly loved it: it is fanciful, creative and various… and you love animals… another reason for great empathy with you… (will keep up spying on you). Thought you might like a (real) story about a wild and romantic “gone-with-the-wind” world of artists and models, that maybe can trigger your creativity or at least an appropriate entry in your “life class” category.
OK, I am… well… am a “mature” lady… and I have been an art student during my younger years, in the sixties.
Surfing internet, I ended up into the picture of a male nude. I reckognized a well known male model who had been posing several times in figure classes I was attending when I was an art student in Rome (Italy). The picture was posted in an college type site (www.namir.it — click on boxes, pictures and titles to navigate the site).
This model was nicknamed as “The Circumcised David”, after the famous Michelangelo statue (in Florence), because he looked as the Michelangelo’s model might have been, but “he” was circumcised, as contrary of the David of the statue.
The direct access to the picture is:
http://www.namir.it/GIOCONDA/noto.htm
(copy and paste the string in the URL area should it not open by clicking on it).
Note the style and quality of the picture. There is a
mood, kind of old style atmosphere, which is hardly found in today’s levigated male nudes which mostly leverage on sexual physicality. It is the special mood and atomsphere of the times, I’d say, portraited into the picture which gives the major quality to the image and makes it tasteful and chaste.
Well, I am maybe rather naive, but I found emotionally intriguingand nostalgic “looking backward” through a picture to an all gone times and cultural epoche “gone with wind”.
Certainly, on all above, you can express a comment or viewpoint more interesting than anybody else.
This as a little tribute to the silent, anonymous “bleu-collars” of the art as all important aritist’s models are.
Well, in any case, thank you for sharing an… old (… but not very…) lady’s nostalgia.
RosalbaKolb@hotmail.com.
P.S. Should you want to use the story and/or the picture — or even better to use to do your own sketch to post in your blog –, you can do. They are in fact under “creative commons” (they told me so, called namir to learn more about that guy. He was a well known artist’s model in his times, worked for many artists and regular art institutions, and there should be some other pix of him around, they said)
June 27th, 200612:55 pm at
Rosalba,
Thank you for your kind words about my blog, and specially for sharing that picture and your story with us.
Please, tell us more about your art student years. I would love to hear more about that ‘gone with the wind’ era of models and artists. Do you still have any of your sketches? If you agree, I will be glad to post them.
July 5th, 200610:00 am at
Great picture and story.
Indigo, why don’t you make a sketch out of the picture of that gone with the wind model and post them both in your site? Would be interesting to compared the photo and the derived sketch.
Keep up with your good job.
Stefany
July 6th, 20065:26 pm at
Hi Stefany,
Thanks for reading, and commenting. Actually, I am waiting for Rosalba to tell us a little more about her story, this famous model and herself. She probably has kept some sketches from her student’s years which I (and many readers too) would love to see. Those sketches, drawn directly from life, have much more vitality and artistic value than anything I could do from a photo.
That is the whole idea of a “life class”, isn’t it?